


T.E.C.H - A MCU Drabble

by CastielsLieutenant



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-01
Updated: 2015-07-16
Packaged: 2018-03-15 19:52:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3459890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CastielsLieutenant/pseuds/CastielsLieutenant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Her name is Tech.</p><p>Part One - Steve Rogers<br/>Part Two - James 'Bucky' Barnes<br/>Part Three - Howling Commandos/In From The Cold<br/>Part Four - Steve Rogers (Part Deux)<br/>Part Five - James 'Bucky' Barnes (Part Deux)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Steve Rogers

Her name is Tech.

No, that isn't right…

She _is_ Tech.

T.E.C.H.

Those four letters, etched into the base memory. Everyday, she accesses a little more and everyday, she reminds herself that she is human.

Well, mostly human.

The engineers have introduced her to Vision, who is mostly _not_ human. They think the two of them are the future of defense.

Tech finds Vision a little bemusing and definitely not human.

She misses people.

* * *

Carolina.

Still far from home, but the woman smiles brightly at the super-soldier with the blonde hair. He’s confused and she understands why.

“Not _what_ , Captain Rogers. _Who_. I’m Tech. T.E.C.H. Technologically Enhanced Computerised Headcast." Taps her forehead. "Tech.” She lifts her hands and proudly displays her silvery fingertips. “I’m the best hacker in the business.”

It takes a while, but when Steve finds out the extent of it, his face is soft and gentle, which just makes it all the worse. She avoids him for as long as she can.

She doesn’t need his pity. Doesn’t want it.

It’s too late for pity.

* * *

Home.

Neither of them have one, really. Steve is quietly sketching her in the testing lab. Tony has devised the strongest of codes, the most impenetrable firewalls to get through.

It’s just a door and all she has to do is get through to the other side.

Hand on the pad, fingertips on the screen. See the code stretching to the event horizon. Find the door. If the door isn’t there, make the door.

Wall after wall falls. She cannot be stopped. It’s a game in the light.

By darkness, it’s terrifying.

* * *

“When?”

Pencil on paper, scratching the quiet of the common room. She breathes.

“When a Chitauri carrying an explosive in the train station… well, exploded.”

Steve can’t breathe. Silence comes crashing in.

Anxiety is a bitch.

* * *

Skinny.

The photo is of him and she touches it reverently. “From before?”

He nods gravely. “4F on account of asthma alone.”

“I had asthma. Didn’t help that I smoked.” Pause. “They don’t let me smoke any more. The nicotine might gummy up the implants they patched up my brain with… well, what they scraped up off the floor, anyway. Poor use of ten thousand years of military tactics and strategy.”

Next mission, Steve brings home a packet of Marlboro and smokes every last one with her on the balcony overlooking the patchwork city below.

* * *

Operative.

Literally and figuratively.

One of the more impressive features of her brain circuits is that they emit a low-wave frequency that makes her invisible to security feeds. The hacker who walks.

She tells Steve that the reason she’s so good at this is that she ‘talks’ to the computers.

The more time she spends out on missions, Steve wonders if they are talking back.


	2. James 'Bucky' Barnes

Bucky was a man who loved the dames. Who wouldn't? All flowing, silky hair, soft skin and doe-eyes, beautiful curves and long legs. The kind of gal who would bat her eyelashes up at him and ask him up for coffee, only to allow him the unfettered enjoyment of a plush mouth. The happy coincidence was that as much as he loved them, they seemed to love him, too.

When he was drafted, he took the prettiest girl in Brooklyn and her friend out dancing with Steve. In the back of his mind, the thought that he might not be coming home to any of them irritated him like a grain of sand in an oyster.

 

* * *

 

Sergeant  Barnes is a hit in Europe. His easy, American charm partnered with a slow smile and his clear blue eyes have the girls falling over themselves to be his date on a Saturday night. He leaves a string of broken hearts from London to Berlin, with nothing but a 'I'll see ya when this is all over, doll' to keep them warm at night.

Sergeant Barnes is not Bucky, who is terrified and cold and thinks about home most of the time but has found a new one at the stock-end of a rifle.

 

* * *

 

James 'Bucky' Barnes is a hero and girls the world over love him. After all, he's Captain America's 2IC – the crack-shot of the Howling Commandos and starring in some of the most action-packed films in theatres around the globe. He watches himself on-screen, firing blindly at fake Nazis and following the 'star-spangled man with a plan' into hysterically unrealistic situations. He's never fought HYDRA forces on a tropical beach.

A brunette two rows in front turns her head and smiles shyly at him. James smiles back. Time to be a movie star.

 

* * *

 

It's cold. He's scared. He's Bucky.

 

Isn't he?

 

* * *

 

The Winter Soldier doesn't care about women. He's shot them dead before.

Gender is irrelevant. People can be deadly regardless of their identity. He's shot through a woman before to take out a potential threat to HYDRA. He's seduced people, slaughtered people, eliminated threats. Step by step towards the perfect world where there is no need for monsters like him.

The red-haired girl, though. She keeps coming back to bite him in the rear. Next time, he won't miss something vital. Red Room camaraderie ends at the door... if it ever began.

 

* * *

 

The assassin can't believe how a fat girl can be so fast.

Every time he moves the blade, she is exactly where it isn't. She's panicking, but it seems to focus her on his movements. Silver glints through her short, choppy hair and he has precious little time to wonder what the cause of it is before she swings her hand up and grips his metal arm  _hard._

Her fingers don't crack through the plating, but for the first time in years he  _feels_ it. Like electricity coursing through his body – and he should know. HYDRA has become quite adept at electroshock treatments. It grips his brain like an iron claw and he hears a high-pitched sound drown out the noise from the street as he sinks to his knees in her hold.

He honours her with his fear as he realises that the howling in his ears is the sound of him screaming as the world blinks into darkness.


	3. Howling Commandos/In From The Cold

 

“Bring him down!”

The comm screams in her ear, but she can't flinch. These are the orders of her captain, as much as it pains him to do it.

She spins and ducks under the murderous swing of metal that goes whistling by her head. Silvery fingertips reach up and grip the arm of her assailant. Less than ten seconds to hack.

There is fear in his eyes as he screams and falls unconscious. It's the first time she's felt remorse for what she does.

 

* * *

 

Quiet.

The room is full of little sounds that all add up to quiet. The clinical beep of the heart-rate monitor. The sussurus of the patients and doctors and nurses and paramedics outside the room. The soft murmuring of the television on the wall.

She doesn't know why Steve wants her here. She doesn't  _want_ to be here. She just knocked his best friend out. She made him scream. She made him  _afraid._

When Bucky opens his eyes, she knows why.

 

* * *

 

Connection.

They talk science at her – the OS running his arm is connected directly into the tendons in his shoulder. He has an implant in his brain to regulate the feedback. Her hacking broke the signal and shocked his brain into blackout.

She looks through the glass to where the Winter Soldier is sleeping off sedation and feels Steve's solid presence behind her.

She knows he doesn't blame her. She was following orders.

He knows she'll blame herself anyway. She was following orders.

 

* * *

 

Memory.

It's amazing what modern technology has done for her. There are still massive gaps of her life missing, but she has Facebook. Unfortunately, Sargeant Barnes doesn't have that same luxury.

She comes back, several weeks later and at Steve's behest, holding her hands up and explaining how it works as he lies still and strapped down with cold metal. One hundred percent access to everywhere in her brain, more processing power than Stark's best computer, more memory space than she knows what to do with.

When she repeats her last sentence in Russian, his icy blue eyes slide across and meet hers for the first time.

 

* * *

 

Talk.

At first, it's one-sided. She talks and he listens... or at least she  _thinks_ he listens. She tells him what has happened and keeps her tablet close to quickly search anything she doesn't have already stored. She repeats things in Russian, in case he doesn't understand her properly.

Then she talks about waking up.

His attention finally goes back to her and after two weeks, when she tells him about the explosion that killed her, he nods.

“I understand.”

 

* * *

 

Friends.

Steve's never really had more than a handful. But watching Bucky with Tech makes him hopeful. When the Winter Soldier speaks, Steve's heart catches in his throat.

It's the first step towards recovery. A small step, but definitely the most important.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> T.E.C.H. and Bucky. Carolina and the Winter Soldier. Rogers is her friend, not sure what Barnes will be to her. Yet.


	4. Steve Rogers (Part Deux)

Defiance.

It runs through Tony like copper wire, but when the billionaire mentions off-hand to Cap that Tech seems a little down, it’s the super soldier who takes her out of the lab, up to the mess room and weasels out of her that three rather mean agents have taunted her about her weight. She tells him not to worry about it and that she turns off the shame and fear responses when it happens, but Steve  _knows_ she thinks about it and that it plays on her mind. He reminds her that without the thick layer of fat on her body, she would fry herself with the amount of electricity she generates, that it’s a  _necessity_  and doesn’t define who she is in the slightest. She assures him that she knows this and that  _he_  has never made her feel that way.

They go out that night, just as pals, but Steve makes sure that the paparazzi sniffing around get good, clean shots of them laughing and talking, his arm around her and holding her close. He knows it’ll be all over the papers tomorrow and that is  _exactly_  what he wants.

The following day, Captain Rogers puts three grown men through a wall.

*             *             *

Gravity.

It’s almost a force of nature pulling them together, but Steve ignores all the little signs that he’s getting in too deep, steadfastly refusing to confront the situation brewing on the horizon. He still treats Tech like normal – or at least he thinks he does – but more often he finds himself drifting into Tony’s lab to sketch her on his downtime as she and the brilliant mechanical engineer work through one task after another.

Tony watches them circle around each other, caught in the other’s pull, with mild amusement. He blasts increasingly lewd and heavy rock but his super soldier friend seems to be able to either block it out completely or doesn’t notice it at all. He favours the latter when he witnesses Steve’s surprised look after he murmurs “Denial is a river in Egypt,” at him.

*             *             *

Crush.

It only really comes to his attention when he finds her one afternoon, tinkering with something in Tony’s lab. Tony is ignoring her mostly, occasionally asking her to run some figures that he can’t be bothered getting FRIDAY to run.

But it’s when Steve gets closer to her and realises she’s humming  _Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy_ that a small flock of butterflies unleashes in his stomach as she looks up with a bright-eyed grin and for the first time ever, Steven G. Rogers trips over his own tongue while talking to one of his most trusted friends.

His cheeks turn a little pink and he forgets what he wanted to say as she sweeps the wisps of hair that have fallen across her face out of the way as he garbles through something that sounds like the details of the next mission. She nods; an amused, if slightly perplexed, look on her face.

Steve almost trips over his own feet to get out of room.

*             *             *

Jealousy.

It’s not a good look on anyone, really. Especially when the person he’s jealous of happens to be his semi-amnesiac best friend who still wakes up screaming in the middle of the night. Steve is loathe to admit to himself the burning feeling in his gut is anything but his normally perfect digestive system chewing through a spicy lunch when he sees Bucky’s arm slung heavy around Tech’s shoulders, the ghost of a smile haunting his face as she babbles like a fast-running brook at him while they slowly move around the room, relearning basic, non-threatening movement.

Steve wants to know how it feels to be that close to her.

He wants to knowsobadly it  _hurts_.

*             *             *

Honesty.

He prides himself on it. So when he comes to collect Tech for Tony’s party and sees her on the floor with a smudge of grease on her cheek, running a last check on the OS for his combat bike’s GPS surrounded by the fluffy, deep blue tulle of the skirt of her dress and her victory rolls slightly unbalanced, he can’t ignore the way his heart wants to break through his ribs and rip through his navy-coloured dress uniform or the fact that his breathing has simultaneously sped up and caught in his throat. He also can’t help but let the words “Good  _God,_  you’re beautiful,” tumble out as she smiles down through her ruby lipstick and her silvery fingertips touch the strand of borrowed diamonds at her throat, but he means every word.

She takes his breath away and she doesn’t even have to touch him to do it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...
> 
> So I was feeling some SpangleTech. Sue me.


	5. James 'Bucky' Barnes (Part Deux)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The five stages of grief, as witnessed by Bucky Barnes.

Denial

The unmistakeable knowledge that things end is something that is endemic to the human race and Tech is no exception. From the moment she steps through the door – Steve _blindingly_ beautiful and on her arm, _hers_ – she feels it: the beginning of the end. Lights go off around her – everyone wants a photo of this moment, wants to remember it and nobody wants that more than her. Tonight, every detail goes to her long term memory storage so she can replay it over and over and remember the night that she was one person in the world Steve Rogers wanted to be with more than anything else.

At least, in her head, that’s the way it plays out.

Because those agents who made the disgusting comments about her weight are at the party with their wives and look pretty ashamed of themselves as Steve scowls at them and tightens an arm around her waist, drawing her into his side. Tech looks over her shoulder for Bucky, dressed in a replica of his wartime dress uniform. It suits him, but he looks uncomfortable.

Tech knows how that feels all too well. But for tonight, she will force herself to ignore it.

*             *             *

The first time Steve makes Tech angry, none of them see it coming.

 It’s in the middle of a fire-fight; the AIM base they’re raiding is cramped and dank, all cold concrete and stale air. Tech engages her CIPHER protocols, ramping up her electricity output. The sparks arc between her fingers like webbing as she sizzles like a Tesla coil, lighting up the room around her. She stands ready to take down the burly agents racing at her, until...

_WHAM_

The shield comes out of nowhere; slamming against the head of the first, ricocheting off the wall and bouncing between the other two before sailing back to its owner, dropping all three.

The glare that Tech gives Steve could drop a man at thirty paces.

When Steve is confused over why Tech won’t talk to him days later – the massive argument that blows up after they return to the tower notwithstanding - Bucky chuckles and pats his shoulder. “95 years old and you _still_ can’t talk to girls.”

*             *             *

It’s not like Tech ever really expected to keep him – not that she had considered him hers in the first place, he’d never _asked_ – but she stays later and later in the computer labs, tearing through Tony’s tests like they are made of paper. She’s not avoiding him, not at all. She has work to do, has to _train_. Just because she can’t run like he does or is as strong as he is doesn’t mean that she doesn’t have to work out. The brain is a muscle like any other.

Bucky finds her there, past midnight, returning from the workout where he laid waste to six boxing bags (helps with the repressed aggression). She’s crying over the tablet she’s working at; quiet, private tears. For a moment, Bucky considers not bothering her – but only for a moment.

It’s later when she’s able to put words together from the jumble in her head that she answers his question as he holds her close, rocking her gently. “You and me, we’re the same. We’d do anything to keep him but we both don’t feel worthy of him.”

Bucky nods. He knows that vicious cycle too well. It’s a cold feeling that runs through when he witnesses the emotion drain from her face as she shuts off the receptors that control emotional pain.

*             *             *

Steve is at the end of his tether. He doesn’t go running in the morning – just like he hasn’t for the last four days. He rolls over and pulls the blankets over his head, wondering what he did wrong. He’s seen her with him – seen her smile with him – but he can’t, just _can’t_ believe his best friend has stolen his girl. Just... doesn’t seem possible.

He can’t even _talk_ to Buck about it and if he hits a little harder and a little faster in their sparring matches, it’s not because he’s angry at _him,_ he’s angry at himself. If that’s what Tech wants, he’s not going to stand in her way. But _why_? Is it something he did? Something he said? He thinks she was happy, that _he_ made her happy. She was _so_ happy the night of the gala – she sparkled on his arm like a radiant diamond and he couldn’t have been prouder – but it all seemed to go downhill from there.

 _Where_ did it all go wrong?

Bucky knocks softly on his door. “Hey punk, you decent?”

Steve groans and burrows under the blankets, not ready for the day.

Bucky sets his jaw. Something has to give.

*             *             *

There are things that Steve Rogers will accept and won’t accept. He will accept, for instance, that he will never beat Clint in a game of darts. It’s never going to happen. He will accept that Tony calls him boss... but only in front of other people (because really, Tony only answers to Pepper). He accepts that Bucky will never really be the man he knew before the ice again, but that he tries everyday to be as good as he was back then.

What he won’t accept – what he _refuses_ to accept – is Tech pushing him away because she thinks she’s not good enough for him.

It takes Bucky _dragging_ him to her door and pounding on it with his metal fist before she finally opens up, finally _tells_ him what the problem is and he feels terrible about it, because he _should_ have asked, should have talked to her, should have _known_.

Bucky stands to the side, arms folded across his chest as he glares at both of them. “You two are sorting this out now.” He’s had enough of Steve moping around the apartment and Tech crying when she thinks no-one can see her and the entire team being grumbly at each other. He _wants_ Tech back – bright and chirpy. He _wants_ Steve back – commanding and reliable. Having the two people he considers his strength turn themselves into nervous wrecks isn’t acceptable.

There are things that Tech will accept and won’t accept. She won’t, for instance, accept that Charlie Bradbury is dead on _Supernatural_ , because no-one ever dies for real on that show. She won’t accept that gender has any relation to the games someone makes or plays, because that’s just a ludicrous piece of sexism. She won’t accept anything but the best of her ability at work – all day, every day.

What she _is_ willing to accept – and perhaps the suffix _finally_ should be used here – is that Steve Rogers loves her and that he’s not going anywhere any time soon.

Which is as good as anyone can ask for, really.


	6. Part Six - In From The Cold (Part Deux)

She’s been missing for a year now.

When Thanos attacked and Tech was lost in the subsequent battle, Steve had spent _months_ searching for a body. Something – _anything -_ that would tell him if she was alive or dead. As time goes on, Bucky watches his friend fall further from obsession and into the icy clutches of despair. He becomes the automaton that Tech swore she would never be: an endless cycle of missions and training.

Sometime during the second year of her absence – when Bucky can see glimpses of his old friend thawing through the cold exterior Steve’s built for himself – the Winter Soldier is separated from the raid on the HYDRA base the Avengers are attacking in Austria. The ambush is quick and Bucky is a little embarrassed over how unaware he was of the five agents that surrounded him and coshed him _hard_ in the head. The last thing he sees before he blacks out is the grey snow on the ground

The smell of sizzling ozone burns his olfactories when he comes to his senses a little while later. He hasn’t been moved, but there are five very _dead_ HYDRA agents surrounding him, exhibiting signs of painful electrocution and welts on their faces. Bucky stands and looks around. He knows he’s being watched, but he can’t see by whom.

Regardless of this fact, he _knows_.

 

* * *

 

The second time it happens, Bucky is spoiling for a fight in Berlin.

It’s just like old times – some drunken idiot picking on Steve, who is quietly nursing a beer in the corner. Some guys seem to think they have something to prove around Captain America and the thuggish man hassling him in unfriendly German is ticking Bucky off royally. Seconds later, the thug and his friend find themselves flying through the back door of the bar, pursued by a spitting-mad Winter Soldier.

The blow to the back of the neck is unexpected and brings Bucky to his knees. The thugs close ranks as he prepares to boost up and separate heads from shoulders.

Suddenly, the alley lights up and Bucky can _smell_ it – the tell-tale burn. He half-smiles to himself as electricity hums around him, sending the two men into fits and dropping them, but not killing them. He doesn’t move, doesn’t look up, but he _does_ speak.

“He’s still looking for you, you know. He won’t give up. I should know.”

The quick footsteps at the mouth of the alley indicate that whoever his guardian angel is has fled the scene. Bucky wonders _why_.

 

* * *

 

 

The third time, it’s not him, but Steve has inhaled a quite frankly _staggering_ amount of hallucinogenic gas in Viper’s lab and he’s jabbering away, hardly making sense, until –

“I saw her, Buck. She was there. C’ld see her through the smoke.”

Bucky turns to his friend, the words muffled by the oxygen mask he’s wearing. “What?”

Steve paws at the mask, fine motor control still coming back to him, shifting it slightly as his head lolls on his neck. “I saw her. Tech. I saw her.”

“Steve, pal, she’s been gone nearly two years now...”

“No body. No record of her death. She’s missing, not dead and she was _there_.” The sadness creeps into his eyes. “Why won’t she come _home_ , Buck? Why won’t she come _back_?” Large tears fill his eyes and plop over the apples of his cheeks. Steve is rarely this emotional and Bucky largely puts it down to the gas Viper pumped into his system as he pats his shoulder, but he’s certain that _someone_ pulled his buddy out of that wreckage of a lab. As to whom it was, the list is dwindling.

 

* * *

 

The fourth time, there’s no denying it. She’s _alive_.

Granted, she doesn’t look like herself. Her hair is long and straight and her body is thinner than it was (the continual jerking movements suggest to Bucky that her electrical output is higher than normal and she’s having mini-seizures because of it). She stands between him and the killer robot she has just fried the circuits of and she’s _staring_ at him like she doesn’t –

“I... I know you. Don’t I?”

 _Oh_.

 

* * *

 

 

Bucky holds Steve as he sobs into his best friend’s shoulder. Banner explains it in a quiet, calm voice; Tech’s brain circuitry was compromised in the battle with Thanos – memory implants were wrenched from their sockets and had been left hanging in her head, occasionally brushing against the neurons they were supposed to be connected to.

“It’s why she thought she remembered you,” Banner gestures to Bucky. “You’re part of her long term memory, but she had no permanent way of accessing it.”

It’s been eight hours in surgery and Steve hasn’t left the observation window. He’s watched them shear off her long, lovely hair and crack open her skull and finally, _finally_ he saw what they did to her. Burnt metal is lifted from her head and run through diagnostics to retrieve any information still stored in it. New components reloaded with the information placed back inside and fused to the brain meat.

Steve pretends not to notice the few times Bucky excuses himself to go throw up in the men’s room. He understands. They’re kinder to her than HYDRA was to him.

Sixteen hours. They close her head.

Banner tells Steve it’s a waiting game now.

 

* * *

 

 

Her name is Tech.

No, that isn't right…

She  _is_  Tech.

T.E.C.H.

Only this time, when she opens her eyes, Steven Grant Rogers is sitting beside her in the afternoon sunlight, reading a book.  She turns her head slowly and reads the cover. “I should download that.”

Sunlight cannot match a smile that adversity has delayed.

 

 


End file.
